I loved it! I like the tension and how they resolved it. I was initially confused on the blonde factor. I thought the first guy seemed like Zack but got thrown off by the his physical description. The gym scene with Cloud announcing Zack's date was hilarious. Joke's on Yuffie if Zack's 'fiery' date turned out to be Aeris.

Guest chapter 1 . 9/2/2012

I love the way you wrote the cute steamy moment with Cloud and Tifa. It's adorable that Yuffie is the one that instigated it, and you write with enough detail that leaves us wanting more yet feeling satisfied.

You are amazing. And adorable. You write CloTi stories so well! Very cute and appropriate yet you leave the readers with a longing for some sexytime between Cloud and Tifa but that's also okay because that's what imaginations are for! You have a nice writing style that paints the picture nicely. Keep up the great work! :)

AU Clouds are always hard to judge. He's the poster child for the nurture over nature argument, which is one of the things that makes FFVII so great (you can SEEEE his development). I'm going to say that I buy this though. In fact, I think this is pretty nice Cloud characterization. He would start out awkward (a la child!Cloud) and a little cold after his "army" experiences, which are hopefully less traumatic than his Shinra grunt experiences. Tifa's obviously encouraging him, though, which is different, so the aggressive Cloud not only works, but is a nice change from emo!Cloud and passive!Cloud.

Things that kind of threw me off a little were Yuffie's reference to Chaos. It immediately put me in a non-AU mindset, so I was confused by the setting. The hanging off of a cliff (not in a cliff) is funny, and also an appropriate introduction to the off-kilter direction this goes into (I expected a Tifa/Zack because I've decided that character tags ruin ALL OF THE FUN so I stopped reading them, but ended up with this instead) though.

I thought the muscle-oggling was a little much. I think you refer to it like five times and describe it in detail like three. Maybe describe it once, cut out the two references, and trim the other heavy description patches just so we know what Tifa's looking at. Only subtly. Muscles are fine, and they fit here, but they seem redundant. Clearly, I am not the target demographic.

Yuffie and Vincent are sort of shoved together for convenience. And now I'm just being nit-picky.

I would have liked more descriptions of Tifa's strife with all of the weights. These ring true to me because I bike to work every day, and if I sleep in too late, and the Sun's out, BAD THINGS HAPPEN. It's just cool to see that in fanfiction for realism's sake. The light fading was good, and the light-headed-ness, but usually there's also something uncomfortable that you focus on, like the strain on one particular muscle where you think, if you could just get rid of that, it would be OKAY, but then it isn't, then crash!fall.

The cool thing about this, besides the awesome Cloud characterization, which was definitely my favorite part, is that the pacing is very precise. The last few tings of similar size that I've read by you have been a little slow or muddled, but I think you really had a good idea of where you wanted the story to go at which point, and that just left it feeling very tight.

Another thing I like is the way Tifa approaches the situation. She seems a little stronger in this than a lot of Cloud/Tifa stories (yeah, I'm Pairing!snob now). The way she approaches this, like a challenge, is in-character. Then she offers him a job.

Then we have Yuffie monologue full circle-ness. This review has ceased to resemble anything coherent.

Oh man, I loved this. Loved the characterizations, loved the situation, loved the subtle glances (or...not so subtle ones), *loved* Yuffie in this (which is pretty unusual for me), and absolutely loved the ending. You did an utterly fantastic job.

first off - wow! For me? Can you see the big puppy eyes of liquid, wobbly joy? 'Cause I've totally got them right now. This is an AWESOME! b-day gift :D And it really is. I love what you've done with the Tifa and Yuffie friendship. It seems sooo like Yuffie to be all about hooking her single friend up. And - oh, so sneaky about it too - lol. The introduction of both of the boys was interesting too. Zack being... well, Zack and Cloud being Cloud. It's easy to see Cloud being all about business and Zack being much more social. The boys interaction was fun too and was a feel good bit. Easy to see Cloud loosening up enough around Zack to joke and tease him right back, giving just as good - if not better - Cloud is the slightly snarky one. I can't imagine how Tifa would NOT notice that Cloud's pretty hot and I like the fact that, even when she's considering Zack, she just doesn't seem to notice the details about him the way she does with Cloud. Passing out from overworking herself? Ouch, embarrassing and yet, yeah, it's easy to see Tifa giving in to a physical challenge even if it was just a subconsciously perceived one. It was sweet to see Cloud taking care of her in the little ways to 'finish your juice' 'don't move too fast' 'help you find your balance even though we're not paying attention anymore' despite everything else that was already starting to build between them. Yuffie showing up and going on her rant was PERFECT! I laughed hard. It was very 'Yuffie' and the Aerith/Zack bit was a cute easter egg. AFTER Yuffie left - well, now that was just hot. Very, very, very, very hot. And I like the way responses focused not on 'me' but rather on the other one. I don't know how much actual work either of them are going to get done if he really does take Tifa up on her job offer - LOL! Hungry!Cloud is ALWAYS nice. Always. and yeah, Tifa owes Yuffie one and I can't help but wonder if Yuffie's little rant was intentionally looking for those results. Awesome story. Hot and sweet and interesting all around. I LOVED it - and YOU! 'Cause you're AWESOME like that :D Hee! I'm going to go back and read this again now ;) thank you, thank you, thank you. You rock!

That really made me laugh, I loved all the interactions between the characters, but the flirting between Cloud and Tifa was just epic. Also I quite want to know what Yuffie did to Vincent. Great job. :)

*hugs* You're back! It's been so long since you shared another great fic with us. I seriously loved this from beginning to end, and of course the VinceYuffie and the smidge of ZackTifa just about made my day(or night). I had fun reading Yuffie's conversation with Tifa over the phone and how she kept talking even when Vince was going a little crazy. Also, were they stuck on one of those climbing walls? Or was it really a cliff? Cloud being all seductive in the end made me grin, too, and I thought that overall, his characterization was fine. Poor Tifa after passing out, at least she had Cloud there to catch her, and to kiss her senseless... This was an awesome way to come back, VB. Thanks for sharing with us!